April 23, 2010

If you are going to get serious about Voice Acting, you are going to have to be able to record your voice, and sooner or later you are going to have to be able to send it to people, probably as an MP3 file. That means you are going to have to get up to speed on some computer audio software. (more…)

Being a Voice Actor nowadays is a little different from the past (at least as far as I understand it). Once upon a time, VA’s had an agent and that agent set up auditions, and the talent went to a studio somewhere to audition. In fact, I think that a lot of the big names still operate that way.

For most of us starting out now though, things will probably be a little different. Many of us will start auditioning, and with luck booking jobs, before we get an agent. We will find these jobs online at the many casting sites and forums and even general sites like Craigslist. What we won’t be doing is traipsing off to some $500 an hour studio to lay down a couple clips in the off chance we will book a $150 job! (I know, I know; you spent 2 years, thousands of dollars in class fees, and countless hours reading aloud to yourself in a coat closet just so you could get a shot at making $150.00!?! — hmmm, how much does it cost to go to Hamburger U. again?) (more…)

April 21, 2010

My name is Whitney Wyatt. I became interested in Voice Acting a little while ago and started researching it by web and by visiting schools in person. In just a few months, I made some great discoveries;

1. The people in the Voice Acting community are remarkably courteous and available to newcomers wishing to learn about their field; and in fact they have placed online thousands of hours worth of training videos and tens of thousands of posts and articles relating to Voice Acting – all out there on the web, all available to the seeker for free. Apparently done for no other reason than to assist other folks whom they do not even know, and most likely at the cost of many, many hours that might have been more profitably spent. Now there are also many fine products for sale from some of these people as well, absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I would suggest that you help support them!

2. There are zillions (scientifically speaking) of commercial sites out there that want to take your money and make you a crappy demo and don’t really have any interest in you, your education, or Voice Acting in general.

3. There is no easy way to differentiate between the two sites without going to them all and checking them out.

So as I started this blog to chronicle my adventures in the Voice Acting world, I thought it might also be nice to try to put together a gathering of sites, blogs, articles, resources, etc. from people who are genuinely interested (and that is a surprisingly large number) in helping you navigate down the road to Voice Acting Nirvana. If you have any suggestions for inclusion, post a comment or drop me a line at Whitsvoice(at)comcast.net

There are a bunch of very well written articles here (well, on Paul’s site, obviously not on this site!) about the daily nuts and bolts of VO work, like landing a freelance job, figuring out rates, taking care of your voice, etc. But there are also a lot of articles more in the line of just improving yourself in general, and thereby improving you VO skills, as well as your life.

You can quite enjoyably drop an hour here before you know what happened.

Opened up a new category of links for various Forums and Message boards out there. I love to poke around on these boards and just pick out a topic here or there that interests me and peruse. All the boards I have put up so far are pretty active, and that is one thing that you have to check when you first hit a board; some of them just die off slowly over time, like the dinosaurs (that whole asteroid thing is something the Discovery Channel dreamed up to pass the time).

Boards and Forums is one of the best way to get up-to-the-minute info on the industry, new software, mics, various ad campaigns, who is doing what commercial, and all sorts of other fun stuff. Often this information is coming straight from real Voice Over Celebrities! VO Celebs are people whose voice you know, but you can’t place the face.

April 20, 2010

Well, if you want to be a Voice Actor, you better like to read! Or if not, then you better grit your teeth and do it anyway — a lot!

And while you are doing all this reading, then why not learn about the industry while you are doing it? Even though you probably won’t find a lot of books at your local bookstore on this subject, they’re out there. They are at Amazon, on E-Bay, and also listed on a lot of websites and blogs.

And now they are going to be listed on one more.

I have started a new page called The Bookshelf. I have purchased and read a surprising (to me) number of books on this subject and I will pop a brief review up there and a link to the book.

I will also list a bunch of books that I have not read yet, but will get around to soon.

If anyone else out there would like to review a book, or have one they really like, drop me a comment and we’ll talk.

Just added a link to Corey Burton’s website. He is an announcing great and has been around the industry for longer than most, observing and learning and storing it all up. Now he is letting it all out and there is an incredible amount of info on the site about the development of the industry, the equipment, and VO life in general. He currently has a great piece about the evolution of Voice Over Style and how and why we got from the classic Gary Owens type announcer to today’s “No Announcers” state. Well worth a read if you have any interest in the field. There is also a great forum on the site which covers every conceivable aspect of VO and life in general.

Added a link to Harlan Hogan’s website. Harlan is a big name in the industry and in addition to doing voice overs, he writes books, teaches seminars, sells his own brand of microphone and even invented a portable voice over booth just for your microphone. There is a bunch of good info, fun stuff and a great listing of books on this site. Well worth a visit.